Petroleum-based grocery bags hit retail stores in 1977 as revolutionary convenience item and have quickly turned into an addiction that allows for 500 billion bags to be used a year, almost 1 million per minute. While consumers have consistently supported improving environmental protection in theory, they are unwilling to take responsibility when it comes to their own actions and reducing the amount they consume.
THE PROBLEM:
Once produced, plastic bags will accumulate and remain on our planet for up to 1,000 years. Plastic bag consumption is not only a domestic problem in the United States it is a problem that is plaguing the world as a whole. Statistics show the problem becoming one of the biggest global environmental issues:
Between 1970 and 2003, plastics became the fastest growing segment of the US municipal waste stream, increasing nine-fold
Four out of every five grocery bags are now made of plastic and The Wall Street Journal estimates that the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags a year, requiring 12 million barrels of oil to produce
The average family accumulates 60 plastic bags in four trips to the grocery store. If one reusable bag were used, 1,000 plastic bags would be eliminated
In a year it is estimated that an American family of four will use approximately 1,460 plastic bags
Of the billions of plastic bags produced, less than 1% are recycled
Australians consume about 6.9 billion plastic bags each year, that's 326 per person, and of those an estimated 50,000,000 end up as litter
Over 24 million plastic bags are consumed in Kenya monthly, over half of these ending up in the solid waste stream
Taiwan consumes 20 billion bags a year that’s 900 bags per person
China's consumers use approximately 3 billion plastic bags a day
THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT:
Plastic bags in general cause a myriad of problems in our oceans as well as on land. Plastic waste can block gutters and drains, creating serious storm water problems and if left sitting can provide breeding ground for mosquitoes and other insects to create diseases like malaria.
IN THE OCEAN:
Plastics have been entering the marine environment in tandem with production over the last half century and are now one of the most common and persistent pollutants in ocean waters and on beaches worldwide. The Center for Marine Conservation has found that plastic bags are among the 12 most common found debris during costal cleanup. Between 1960 and 2000, the world production of plastic increased 25-fold, while recovery remained below 5%. In relation, of the materials that end up in our oceans, plastic accounts for 60–80% of it.
Right now there are 267 known species of marine organisms worldwide that have been affected by plastic debris, a number that will likely increase as smaller organisms are studied. Plastic entangles marine life killing it by drowning, strangulation, dragging, and ingestion. Animals are eating plastic items that mimic their natural food. This plastic fails to provide the necessary nutrition, leaving sea birds starving and unable to feed their young and killing sea turtles in the oceans. For sea turtles, shopping bags balloon out in the water and resemble jellyfish, a sea turtle favorite, and are regularly consumed killing the turtle. An estimated 100,000 marine animal deaths are caused a year by plastic bag consumption alone. In addition, plastic that sinks to the sea floor can smother and kill the inhabitants and sediments that reside there, this has been most evident for living corals as the plastic suffocates and kills them.
About half of the world’s human population lives within 50 miles of the ocean and since the ocean is downhill and downstream from virtually everywhere, lightweight plastic trash blows and runs off into the sea. When exposed to the UVB radiation in sunlight these polymers become brittle and break into smaller pieces which take thousands of years to degrade. Plastic pieces can attract and hold hydrophobic elements like PCB and DDT; as a result poison is left floating on the water’s surface. Once the debris reaches the ocean, winds either take it to shore or push it towards major ocean currents. In the deep ocean, large high-pressure systems known as gyres accumulate the debris, while low-pressure systems disperse it. This is how the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” was formed and how a new area in the North Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the US has formed with a plastic density of 200,000 pieces of debris per square kilometer, a number comparable to the mass in the Pacific.
FOR INDUSTRIES ON WATER:
Marine plastic litter ruins vessel intake ports, keels and propellers, and puts crew at risk while working to free debris. This causes damage to vessels, costing millions of dollars a year. In addition, the US Coast Guard found that floating and submerged objects caused 269 boating accidents resulting in 15 deaths, 116 injuries and $US 3 million in property damage in 2005.
HOW SOME COUNTRIES HAVE HANDLED THE NEWS:
Chapter 21 of Agenda 21 is a document that has been adopted by the United Nations for environmental protection. This document states “environmentally sound waste management must go beyond the mere safe disposal or recovery of wastes that are generated and seek to address the root cause of the problem by attempting to change unsustainable patterns of production and consumption”. The United Nations sees the imminent danger the world is facing if nothing is done, and is calling upon countries to help fix the problem.
Some structural controls have been set up to help alleviate the problem, devices designed to catch plastic debris before it reaches rivers and oceans are being installed at urban catch basins, storm drains and pumping stations across the country. Beach and reef cleanup initiatives have been taken across the world, as part of the Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Cleanup, on a single day, nearly 400,000 volunteers around the world picked up more than 6 million pounds of trash.
In Ireland plastic bags were not the most popular items filling up landfills, they only accounted for 5% of the waste composition, the problem was that approximately 1.2 billion bags were being consumed a year (326 per person) and was the most visible litter pollution along the countryside and coastlines. In March 2002, the Irish government introduced a € 0.15 ‘‘PlasTax’’ per plastic bag at the point of sale in retail stores across the country. Usually policies are designed to reduce the volume of materials in the waste stream by imposing deposits or user charges for waste collection. This system however is much different in it was designed to change the way that consumers behave and to reduce the quantity of plastic bags in circulation.
The tax was successful because it was set at an amount much higher than it needed to be to cause consumers to stop and think about bringing their own reusable bags to avoid paying the tax. The consumer’s maximum willingness to pay for a plastic bag was only around € 0.024, the € 0.15 is more than six times that number on purpose, to make consumers change their behaviors. Since the levy, the number of bags in the consumption stream has been reduced by roughly 94%, the number of litter free areas (“clear” areas) has increased by 21%, the areas without traces of plastic bags has increased by 56% and plastic bag litter has decreased from 5% of national litter composition in 2001, before the levy, to 0.22% in 2004.
The revenues that are made off of the tax are ushered into an environmental fund operated by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to be used for a variety of environmental programs. Revenue from the “PlasTax” was over 30 times the costs of collection; in the first year the program collected €12 million and € 13–14 million the next year.
The goal of the government was not to punish the consumers but to make a link between good environmental behavior and the price they are willing to pay for it. Because of this, the Irish people feel that this program has had a positive effect on the environment and many feel guilty when they forget their reusable bags. In addition to gaining universal acceptance, the “PlasTax” has saved Ireland 18,000,000 liters of oil since its inception.
In the US, San Francisco was the first city to ban plastic bags from large supermarkets and pharmacies in 2007. Several months later the rest of California passed laws requiring large supermarkets to take back and recycle plastic bags. Since then many states across the US have created a recycling system for plastic bags in grocery stores. Washington D.C. was the first state in the Nation to create a tax for plastic bags. The district imposed a $0.05 tax on single-use bags in bakeries, delicatessens, grocery stores, drugstores, convenience stores, department stores and any other "business that sells food items". D.C. estimated that 22.5 million bags were distributed each month before the tax in 2009, since the tax took effect on January 1 the same establishments gave out only 3 million bags, reducing the distribution by almost 90% and generating about $150,000. Like Ireland’s tax, it was aimed to change consumer behaviors and the money made from the tax is used for the Anacostia River Cleanup Fund.
In Europe Italy has a levy on plastic bags from a decade ago and by the end of 2010 plan for plastic bags to be banned. France plans to impose a ban by 2010, Belgium and Switzerland imposed a tax for bags. Spain is planning to halve the consumption of plastic bags by 2009, and in Germany and Holland, most supermarkets already charge for bags. Australia announced plans in January 2008 to phase out the use of free plastic bags by the end of the year.
In Africa, a slew of countries are banning thinner plastic bags from circulation and putting taxes on bags that contain more plastic. South Africa was the first to ban thin bags then Eritrea, Rwanda, Tanzania and Somalia followed quickly after. Nairobi, Kenya suffers a severe housing problem, 55–60% of the population lives in crowded informal settlements of about 50,000 persons per square kilometer, 75% of these residents receive no solid waste service or sewer connections.
Because of this, most residents prefer to defecate in plastic bags and throw the bags on roof tops, around non-functional toilets, or any available open space like water drains and rivers. Due to its frequency, the practice has gained some nicknames like ‘flying toilets’ or ‘scud missiles’. In addition to the litter waste, poorer countries are facing a sanitation crisis propelled by the availability of plastic bags. To add to the environmental issues countries with inadequate waste management systems tend to burn their plastic waste, releasing toxic gasses into the atmosphere and leaving toxic residue on the ground. In 2007 Kenya and Uganda joined its neighboring countries and banned thinner plastic bags and imposed levies on thicker ones.
In a move to decrease the 60,000 metric tons of plastic bag and plastic utensil waste being produced per year, in 2003 Taiwan was the first country in Asia to ban light-weight plastic bags. In 2008, China announced it would ban shops from handing out free plastic bags and make production of ultra-thin carriers illegal, which has led to the closure of China's largest plastic bag factory. In 2002, Bangladesh imposed an outright ban on all thinner plastic bags after they were found to have choked the drainage system during devastating floods.
THE RESISTANCE:
Plastic bags cost about one penny, paper costs three pennies and biodegradable bags, made of potato or cornstarch, cost about eight cents per bag. Plastic bags are much cheaper to make which means they are subsequently cheaper for retailers to buy. In the United States, some feel that although charging for the bags would change consumer behaviors and persuade people to use reusable bags, it would be a problem for those who were already struggling to make ends meet, who would not be able to cover the extra charge if they forgot their bags.
Also, the environmental profile of plastic is better than alternatives like paper; 500 paper bags amounted to a stack two feet high while the same amount of plastic bags was only 2 inches high. Some think that this would add to the cost of waste management because it would require seven times more trucks to move paper as it would to move plastic.
A SIDE NOTE:
Not all policies work equally in each country, in Denmark they found that weight-based tax worked better because they were aiming to reduce the amount of plastic used when making the bags. In countries that are aiming to reduce the visibility and consumption of plastic bags, a levy or tax based policy works better.
Many of the studies were based off interviews and interestingly enough of those interviewed many were either unaware or did not understand the environmental consequences of improperly disposing plastic waste. Adults felt they were most influenced by the information being brought home from her children’s school, and that to change people’s habits, awareness should begin early rather than later.
Petroleum-based grocery bags hit retail stores in 1977 as revolutionary convenience item and have quickly turned into an addiction that allows for 500 billion bags to be used a year, almost 1 million per minute. While consumers have consistently supported improving environmental protection in theory, they are unwilling to take responsibility when it comes to their own actions and reducing the amount they consume.THE PROBLEM:
Once produced, plastic bags will accumulate and remain on our planet for up to 1,000 years. Plastic bag consumption is not only a domestic problem in the United States it is a problem that is plaguing the world as a whole. Statistics show the problem becoming one of the biggest global environmental issues:
- Between 1970 and 2003, plastics became the fastest growing segment of the US municipal waste stream, increasing nine-fold
- Four out of every five grocery bags are now made of plastic and The Wall Street Journal estimates that the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags a year, requiring 12 million barrels of oil to produce
- The average family accumulates 60 plastic bags in four trips to the grocery store. If one reusable bag were used, 1,000 plastic bags would be eliminated
- In a year it is estimated that an American family of four will use approximately 1,460 plastic bags
- Of the billions of plastic bags produced, less than 1% are recycled
- Australians consume about 6.9 billion plastic bags each year, that's 326 per person, and of those an estimated 50,000,000 end up as litter
- Over 24 million plastic bags are consumed in Kenya monthly, over half of these ending up in the solid waste stream
- Taiwan consumes 20 billion bags a year that’s 900 bags per person
- China's consumers use approximately 3 billion plastic bags a day
THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT:Plastic bags in general cause a myriad of problems in our oceans as well as on land. Plastic waste can block gutters and drains, creating serious storm water problems and if left sitting can provide breeding ground for mosquitoes and other insects to create diseases like malaria.
IN THE OCEAN:
Plastics have been entering the marine environment in tandem with production over the last half century and are now one of the most common and persistent pollutants in ocean waters and on beaches worldwide. The Center for Marine Conservation has found that plastic bags are among the 12 most common found debris during costal cleanup. Between 1960 and 2000, the world production of plastic increased 25-fold, while recovery remained below 5%. In relation, of the materials that end up in our oceans, plastic accounts for 60–80% of it.
Right now there are 267 known species of marine organisms worldwide that have been affected by plastic debris, a number that will likely increase as smaller organisms are studied. Plastic entangles marine life killing it by drowning, strangulation, dragging, and ingestion. Animals are eating plastic items that mimic their natural food. This plastic fails to provide the necessary nutrition, leaving sea birds starving and unable to feed their young and killing sea turtles in the oceans. For sea turtles, shopping bags balloon out in the water and resemble jellyfish, a sea turtle favorite, and are regularly consumed killing the turtle. An estimated 100,000 marine animal deaths are caused a year by plastic bag consumption alone. In addition, plastic that sinks to the sea floor can smother and kill the inhabitants and sediments that reside there, this has been most evident for living corals as the plastic suffocates and kills them.
About half of the world’s human population lives within 50 miles of the ocean and since the ocean is downhill and downstream from virtually everywhere, lightweight plastic trash blows and runs off into the sea. When exposed to the UVB radiation in sunlight these polymers become brittle and break into smaller pieces which take thousands of years to degrade. Plastic pieces can attract and hold hydrophobic elements like PCB and DDT; as a result poison is left floating on the water’s surface. Once the debris reaches the ocean, winds either take it to shore or push it towards major ocean currents. In the deep ocean, large high-pressure systems known as gyres accumulate the debris, while low-pressure systems disperse it. This is how the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” was formed and how a new area in the North Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the US has formed with a plastic density of 200,000 pieces of debris per square kilometer, a number comparable to the mass in the Pacific.
FOR INDUSTRIES ON WATER:
Marine plastic litter ruins vessel intake ports, keels and propellers, and puts crew at risk while working to free debris. This causes damage to vessels, costing millions of dollars a year. In addition, the US Coast Guard found that floating and submerged objects caused 269 boating accidents resulting in 15 deaths, 116 injuries and $US 3 million in property damage in 2005.
HOW SOME COUNTRIES HAVE HANDLED THE NEWS:
Chapter 21 of Agenda 21 is a document that has been adopted by the United Nations for environmental protection. This document states “environmentally sound waste management must go beyond the mere safe disposal or recovery of wastes that are generated and seek to address the root cause of the problem by attempting to change unsustainable patterns of production and consumption”. The United Nations sees the imminent danger the world is facing if nothing is done, and is calling upon countries to help fix the problem.
Some structural controls have been set up to help alleviate the problem, devices designed to catch plastic debris before it reaches rivers and oceans are being installed at urban catch basins, storm drains and pumping stations across the country. Beach and reef cleanup initiatives have been taken across the world, as part of the Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Cleanup, on a single day, nearly 400,000 volunteers around the world picked up more than 6 million pounds of trash.
In Ireland plastic bags were not the most popular items filling up landfills, they only accounted for 5% of the waste composition, the problem was that approximately 1.2 billion bags were being consumed a year (326 per person) and was the most visible litter pollution along the countryside and coastlines. In March 2002, the Irish government introduced a € 0.15 ‘‘PlasTax’’ per plastic bag at the point of sale in retail stores across the country. Usually policies are designed to reduce the volume of materials in the waste stream by imposing deposits or user charges for waste collection. This system however is much different in it was designed to change the way that consumers behave and to reduce the quantity of plastic bags in circulation.
The tax was successful because it was set at an amount much higher than it needed to be to cause consumers to stop and think about bringing their own reusable bags to avoid paying the tax. The consumer’s maximum willingness to pay for a plastic bag was only around € 0.024, the € 0.15 is more than six times that number on purpose, to make consumers change their behaviors. Since the levy, the number of bags in the consumption stream has been reduced by roughly 94%, the number of litter free areas (“clear” areas) has increased by 21%, the areas without traces of plastic bags has increased by 56% and plastic bag litter has decreased from 5% of national litter composition in 2001, before the levy, to 0.22% in 2004.
The revenues that are made off of the tax are ushered into an environmental fund operated by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to be used for a variety of environmental programs. Revenue from the “PlasTax” was over 30 times the costs of collection; in the first year the program collected €12 million and € 13–14 million the next year.
The goal of the government was not to punish the consumers but to make a link between good environmental behavior and the price they are willing to pay for it. Because of this, the Irish people feel that this program has had a positive effect on the environment and many feel guilty when they forget their reusable bags. In addition to gaining universal acceptance, the “PlasTax” has saved Ireland 18,000,000 liters of oil since its inception.
In the US, San Francisco was the first city to ban plastic bags from large supermarkets and pharmacies in 2007. Several months later the rest of California passed laws requiring large supermarkets to take back and recycle plastic bags. Since then many states across the US have created a recycling system for plastic bags in grocery stores. Washington D.C. was the first state in the Nation to create a tax for plastic bags. The district imposed a $0.05 tax on single-use bags in bakeries, delicatessens, grocery stores, drugstores, convenience stores, department stores and any other "business that sells food items". D.C. estimated that 22.5 million bags were distributed each month before the tax in 2009, since the tax took effect on January 1 the same establishments gave out only 3 million bags, reducing the distribution by almost 90% and generating about $150,000. Like Ireland’s tax, it was aimed to change consumer behaviors and the money made from the tax is used for the Anacostia River Cleanup Fund.
In Europe Italy has a levy on plastic bags from a decade ago and by the end of 2010 plan for plastic bags to be banned. France plans to impose a ban by 2010, Belgium and Switzerland imposed a tax for bags. Spain is planning to halve the consumption of plastic bags by 2009, and in Germany and Holland, most supermarkets already charge for bags. Australia announced plans in January 2008 to phase out the use of free plastic bags by the end of the year.
In Africa, a slew of countries are banning thinner plastic bags from circulation and putting taxes on bags that contain more plastic. South Africa was the first to ban thin bags then Eritrea, Rwanda, Tanzania and Somalia followed quickly after. Nairobi, Kenya suffers a severe housing problem, 55–60% of the population lives in crowded informal settlements of about 50,000 persons per square kilometer, 75% of these residents receive no solid waste service or sewer connections.
Because of this, most residents prefer to defecate in plastic bags and throw the bags on roof tops, around non-functional toilets, or any available open space like water drains and rivers. Due to its frequency, the practice has gained some nicknames like ‘flying toilets’ or ‘scud missiles’. In addition to the litter waste, poorer countries are facing a sanitation crisis propelled by the availability of plastic bags. To add to the environmental issues countries with inadequate waste management systems tend to burn their plastic waste, releasing toxic gasses into the atmosphere and leaving toxic residue on the ground. In 2007 Kenya and Uganda joined its neighboring countries and banned thinner plastic bags and imposed levies on thicker ones.
In a move to decrease the 60,000 metric tons of plastic bag and plastic utensil waste being produced per year, in 2003 Taiwan was the first country in Asia to ban light-weight plastic bags. In 2008, China announced it would ban shops from handing out free plastic bags and make production of ultra-thin carriers illegal, which has led to the closure of China's largest plastic bag factory. In 2002, Bangladesh imposed an outright ban on all thinner plastic bags after they were found to have choked the drainage system during devastating floods.
THE RESISTANCE:
Plastic bags cost about one penny, paper costs three pennies and biodegradable bags, made of potato or cornstarch, cost about eight cents per bag. Plastic bags are much cheaper to make which means they are subsequently cheaper for retailers to buy. In the United States, some feel that although charging for the bags would change consumer behaviors and persuade people to use reusable bags, it would be a problem for those who were already struggling to make ends meet, who would not be able to cover the extra charge if they forgot their bags.
Also, the environmental profile of plastic is better than alternatives like paper; 500 paper bags amounted to a stack two feet high while the same amount of plastic bags was only 2 inches high. Some think that this would add to the cost of waste management because it would require seven times more trucks to move paper as it would to move plastic.
A SIDE NOTE:
Not all policies work equally in each country, in Denmark they found that weight-based tax worked better because they were aiming to reduce the amount of plastic used when making the bags. In countries that are aiming to reduce the visibility and consumption of plastic bags, a levy or tax based policy works better.
Many of the studies were based off interviews and interestingly enough of those interviewed many were either unaware or did not understand the environmental consequences of improperly disposing plastic waste. Adults felt they were most influenced by the information being brought home from her children’s school, and that to change people’s habits, awareness should begin early rather than later.
Bibliography:
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